Unusual claims, normative process: on the use and stringency of the scientific method.

Abstract

Do unusual claims require extraordinary proof? A scientific claim is evaluated through application of the scientific method. This involves experimentation (most rigorously in comparison to some form of control) and/or observation. Analyses and descriptions can be quantitative or qualitative, but adherence to stringent criteria to ensure validity of method and outcomes is essential. Claims that have been evaluated by this method are then disseminated through publication and/or presentation so as to be independently tested by other scientists. If such tests support the original claim, then, following a sufficient but indeterminate number of successful replications, the claim and any accompanying hypotheses and theories may be added to the scientific lexicon. If such tests fail to support the original claim, it is questioned and rejected (usually following a lesser number of replication attempts than is required to accept or sustain such claims). These results are commonly considered as ‘proof’ among the non-scientific, lay public. However, this is a misnomer. The process of discarding and/or accepting scientific claims is one of convergence upon ‘a truth’ that is subject to change as a consequence of scientific knowledge itself. Therefore, scientific claims and the truths they seek are always tangential. Unlike a mathematical proof, scientific claims and accompanying hypotheses and theoretical bases are always subject to scrutiny, challenge and revision, based upon both ongoing evaluation of the claim, and intellectual understanding of science and nature, at large. This is true for unusual claims as well as the more mundane. To suggest that something further needs to be applied to scrutinize an unusual claim is to misunderstand the principles of the scientific process, and scientific philosophy. It is of course a truism that all important or groundbreaking claims are by definition ‘unusual’. The elegance of the scientific process is that it addresses and evaluates all claims and discoveries identically. The process itself is progressive as Joshua Roebke claims ‘... science is ... an unending courtship, flirting ever closer with the absolute truth it desires though may never attain’ [2]. The scientific method, though rigorous, is not perfect. But, as Roebke notes, may be ‘... the best tool humans have for discerning facts of the world ...’ and ‘its utility, despite its limitations, earns it our trust’. The process of peer review is only a first step toward solidifying such trust and participating in that courtship. In this issue, such attention may be directed to somewhat ‘unusual’ scientific claims regarding outcomes and mechanisms of homeopathic treatments in which it is claimed that medicinal value may be found in solutions that do not contain the active ingredient. This seems contrary to the established theoretical understanding of pharmacobiology. However, the scientific approach is not to reject a claim simply because it seems implausible or unorthodox. Rather, the scientific approach is to test the claim. Historically, there have been numerous examples of scientific claims that were considered implausible, unorthodox, if not impossible based upon the epistemology of the time and/or culture, but were subsequently validated (e.g. heliocentricism, germ theory, etc.). In hindsight, we recognize that it was our understanding of both the claim and the natural world that was flawed. In this issue of FORSCHENDE KOMPLEMENTARMEDIZIN, Pathak and colleagues seem to have made an implausible claim – that an oral solution with none of the putatively active molecule present can significantly impact the course of hepatic neoplastic disease in a mouse model [3]. They have tested this hypothesis in their laboratories and maintain that there is evidence to support their claim. They have described the conditions under which tests of this hypothesis were performed and have submitted their findings to peer review pursuant to publication in this journal. This is the scientific process.